Character actor Alessandro Nivola plays an oddball character in ‘The Art of Self-Defense’

Ed Symkus More Content Now

Thursday

Jul 11, 2019 at 11:41 AMJul 11, 2019 at 11:41 AM

Even if his very European, multisyllabic name - Alessandro Nivola- doesn’t ring a bell, moviegoers will certainly know his face. The Boston-born actor-producer-musician got his start on the stage but a right time-right place Broadway appearance (opposite Hellen Mirren in “A Month in the Country”) a couple of decades ago led to his first film assignment, as Nic Cage’s brother in John Woo’s “Face/Off.” Since then he’s regularly been landing parts in films including “Mansfield Park,” “Junebug,” “American Hustle,” and “You Were Never Really Here.” Last year he was named Best Supporting Actor at the British Independent Film Awards for his role as an orthodox rabbi in “Disobedience.”

In “The Art of Self-Defense,” Nivola, 47, goes for the darkly comic side of things, playing a mysterious karate instructor who welcomes in a much-bullied new student (Jesse Eisenberg), then attempts to transform him into an extremely different person. Nivola, who’s married to and runs a production company with actress Emily Mortimer, and recently finished filming his part in the upcoming Sopranos prequel film “The Many Saints of Newark,” spoke by phone while driving through the streets of New York.

Q: Are you one of those guys who had his sights set on being in movies since you were a kid?A: I wanted to be an actor since I was a kid, but I grew up really loving the theater. So, I was going to summer drama schools and doing internships at summer theaters. I spent five years at the Eugene O’Neill Theatre Center in Connecticut where they would try out new plays. A lot of August Wilson and John Patrick Shanley’s plays started there when I was a teenager. I did a couple of years in the regional theater circuit where I’d be in plays all over the country, but my first play in New York was “A Month in the Country” which was a breakthrough role for me. John Woo’s casting director saw me in that, and that was how I got a meeting with John when he was getting ready to direct “Face/Off.” I got cast in that movie, and went out to L.A. It turned out to be a five-month shoot, and I ended up staying there and going between L.A. and London making movies from that point on. I didn’t do another play for about nine years.

Q: How did you become part of the cast in “The Art of Self-Defense?”A: I was doing a movie in Namibia - “The Red Sea Diving Resort.” I had been there for months and months, was a week away from wrapping, and was ready to just collapse and go home and catch up with my family. But suddenly this little movie showed up in my inbox. I was told I had 24 hours to decide and that filming would start three days after I got home. So, I read it and I just thought it had such an original tone and it would be a great opportunity to play a kind of hilarious but complicated character. So, I had a chat with (writer-director) Riley Stearns on the phone, decided to do it, and pretty much went straight from Namibia to Louisville, Kentucky, where we shot it.

Q: You’re calling Sensei hilarious and complicated. That’s an understatement. Looking back on him, what do you think makes him tick?A: A friend of mine recently saw the film and described the character as both cunning and stupid, and I think that’s an apt description (laughs). He runs this small dojo in Smalltown, USA. He’s very manipulative and seductive, but everything he says is just sort of inane and moronic. He takes Casey (Jesse Eisenberg) under his wing and decides he’s going to teach him how to be a man. I think Sensei is a sort of lonely, impotent-feeling guy who could never find his place in the world, but found this one little arena where he can kind of lord it over everybody. But he slowly proves to be completely unhinged.

Q: You have some long, involved speeches in the film, and you get to show off some martial arts skills. Which of those was more of a challenge?A: Because I had so little time to prepare, the speeches and learning to fight were both difficult. Thankfully, Jesse’s sister hung out with me at the hotel every day and just drilled those long speeches in me over and over again. So, I’m really grateful to her for that. My fighting trainer was Mindy Kelly. I arrived on a Saturday and was supposed to start filming on Monday. I had just unpacked my suitcase when Mindy walked in the door and started in on me with two different routines I had to learn. So, it was 48 hours of a hardcore crash course in fighting.

Q: With all of that going on, does something happen to you when the camera rolls? Do you sort of go somewhere else?A: I try to. The whole point of acting is to get into some kind of altered state where you’re not thinking anymore, you’re just allowing your instincts to take you. That’s what we want. It’s like the way athletes describe being in the zone. It’s an incredible feeling when it happens.

“The Art of Self-Defense” opens on July 19.Ed Symkus writes about movies for More Content Now. He can be reached at esymkus@rcn.com.

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